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5 53d  Congress, 
j(J  Seftsinn. 


SENATE. 


Mis.  Doc. 
No.  104. 


annual  kepoet 


OF  THE 


A)[E1!1CAX  lllSTOliirAL  ASSOCIATION 


F(4U 

* 

THE  YE^VR  1808. 


f 


WASHINGTON  : 
GOVERNJrENT  PRINTING  OFFICE. 
1894. 


) 

9 


I 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE  FRONTIER  IN  AMERICAN  HISTORY.* 


By  Fredehick  J.  Turner. 


lu  a recent  balletiii  of  the,  Siinerintendent  of  the  Census  for 
1800  appeartlie.se  siarniticant  word.s : ••  Up  to  and  including 

1880  the  country  had  a frontier  of  settlement,  but  at  present 
the  iiusettled  area  has  been  so  broken  into  by  isolated  bodies 
of  settlement  that  there  can  hardly  be  said  to  be  a frontier" 
line.  In  the  discussion  of  its  extent,  its  we.stward  movement, 
etcTrit  can  not,  therefore,  any  longer  have  a place  in  the  cen- 
sus reports.’’  This  brief  official  statement  marks  the  closing 
of  a great  historic  movement.  Up  to  our  own  day  American 
history  has  been  in  a large  degree  the  history  of  tbe  coloniza- 
tion of  the  Great  West,  The  existence  of  an  area  of  free  land. 
its  continuous  recession,  and  the  advance  of  American  settle- 
ment westward,  exnlam  American  devetopment. 

Behind  iu.stitutions,  behind  constitutional  forms  and  modi- 
fications, lie  the  vital  forces  that  cull  these  organs  into  life 
and  shape  them  to  meet  changing  conditions.  '^he_pecuLU 
arity  of^lniericmijustitutions  is,  the  fact  that  they  have  been 
compelled  to  adant  themselyes.  to  the  changes  of  an  expand- 
ing  people — to  the  chaa^igesjuvolyed  in  crossing  ajcojituient, 
iTTlvTnniug  a~ wildern^s,  and  in  developing  at  each  area  of 
th mjQrogress-Piit_Qf  the  primitive,  ec.onomic  and  politl^I'cdn- 
ditions  of  the  frontier  inUL.tke,compUexity_of  city  life.  Said 
Calhoun  in  1817,  We  are  great,  and  rapidlj' — I was  about  to 
say  fearfully — growing!”!  So  saying,  he  touched  the  distin- 
guishing feature  of  American  life.  All  peoides  show  develop- 
ment; the  germ  theory  of  politi(U  has  been  sufficiently  empha- 
sized. In  the  case  of  most  nations,  however,  the  development 

* Since  the  meeting  of  the  America  n Historical  Association,  this  paper 
has  also  been  given  as  an  address  to  the  State  Historical  Society  of  Wis- 
consin, December  1-1,  1893.  I have  to  thank  the  Secretary  of  the  Society, 
Mr.  Reuben  G.  Thwaites,  for  securin  g valuable  material  for  my  use  in  the 
preparation  of  the  paper. 

tAbridgment  of  Debates  of  Congre.Sh,  v.,  p.  706. 


199 


AMERICAN  HISTORICAL  ASSOCIATION. 


2ro 

lias  occurred  in  a limited  area;  and  if  the  nation  has  expanded, 
it  has  met  other  growinj^  peoples  whom  it  has  conquered.  But 
in  the  case  of  the  United  States  we  have  a different  phenom- 
enon. Limiting-  our  attention  to  the  Atlantic  coast,  we  have 
the  familiar  xdienomenon  of  the  evolution  of  institutions  in  a 
limited  area,  such  as  the  rise  of  representative  govtumment; 
the  didereutiatiou  of  simple  colonial  governments  into  com- 
plex organs;  the  pi'ogress  from  primitive  industrial  society, 
without  division  of  labor,  up  to  manufacturing  civilization. 
But  we  have,  in  addition  to  this  a recurre.iice  of  the  process 
ot  evolution  in  each  western  area  reached  in  the  processoT 
expa^ion.  Thus  American  develonment  has  exhibited  not 
merely  advance  along  a single  line,  but  a return  to  primitive 
<-onuitions  on  a continually  advancing  frontier  line,  and  a new 
development  tor  that  are~  American  social  develo])ment  has, 
been  continually  beginning  over  again  on  the  frontier,  f This\ 
perennial  rebirth/tiiis  fHiidity  of^Auierican  life,  this  exiiansioii 
westward  with  its  new  opportunities,  its  continuous  touch  with 
the  simplicity  of  primitive  society,  fprnish  the  forces  dominat-  ' 
ing  American  character.y/The  truegjoint  of  view  in  the  history 
of  this  nation  is  not  the  Atlantic  coast,  it  is  the  great  West. 
Even  the  slavery  struggle,  which  is  made  so  exclusive  an 
object  of  attention  by  writers  like  Prof,  von  Holst,  occupies  its 
important  ])lace  in  American  history  because  of  its  relation  to 
westward  expansion. 

In  this  advance,  the  frouti'gr  is  the  outer.edge  of  the  wave — 
the  meeting- point  between  snvnoe.ry  mid  civilization . Much  has 
been  written  about  the  frontier  from  the  point  of  view  of  bor- 
der warfare  and  the  chase,  btit  as  a field  for  the  serious  study 
of  the  economist  and  the  historian  it  has  been  neglected. 

^ The  American  frontier  is  jsharply  distinguished  from  the 
European  Irontier — a tortihedr boundary  line  running  through 
Mense  populations.  The  most  significant  thing  about  the 
r American  frontier  is,  that  it  libs  at  the  hither  edge  of  free.land. 
in  tne  census  reports  it  is  tretded  as  the  margin  of  that  settle- 
ment which  has  a density  of  two  or  more  to  the  square  mile. 
The  term  is  an  elastic  one,  an(7  for  our  purposes  does  not  need 
sharp  definition.  We  shall  consider  the  whole  frontier  belt, 
including  the  Indian  country  and  the  outer  margin  of  the 
“ settled  area”  of  the  census  r eports.  This  paper  will  make 
no  attempt  to  treat  the  subject  (Exhaustively;  its  aim  is  simply 
to  call  attention  to  the  frontier',  as  a fertile  held  for  investiga- 


FRONTIER  IN  AMERICAN  HISTORY TURNER.  201 


tiou,  and  to  sugge.st  some  of  the  ]irobleins  which  arise  in  con- 
nection with  it. 

In  the  settlement  of  America  we  have  to  observe  how  Eiiro- 
]tean  life  entered  the  continent,  and  hou-  America  inoditied 
and  developed  that  life  and  reacted  on  Europe.  Our  early 
liistory  is  the  study  of  Euroiiean  germs  developing  in  an 
American  environment.  Too  exclusive  attention  has  been 
paid  by  institutional  students  to  the  Germanic  origins,  too 
little  to  the  American  factors.  The  frontier  is  the  line  of 
most  rapid  and  effective  Americanization.  The  wilderness 
niasters  tlie  colonist.  It  finds  him  a European  in  dress,  indus- 
tries, tools,  modes  of  travel,  and  thought.  It  takes  him  from 
the  railroad  car  and  i)uts  him  in  the  birch  canoe.  It  strips  off 
the  garments  of  civilization  and  arrays  him  in  the  hunting 
shirt  and  the  moccasin.  It  puts  him  in  the  log  cabin  of  the 
Cherokee  and  Iroquois  and  runs  an  Indian  palisade  around 
him.  Before  long  he  has  gone  to  planting  Indian  corn  and 
plowing  with  a sharp  stick;  he  shouts  the  war  cry  and  takes 
the  scalj)  in  orthodox  Indian  fashion.  In  short,  at  the  fron- 
tier the  environment  is  at  first  too  strong  for  the  man.  He 
must  acce]>t  the  conditions  which  it  furnishes,  or  perish,  and 
so  he  fits  himself  into  the  Indian  clearings  and  follows  the 
Indian  tr.ails.  Little  by  little  he  transforms  the  wilderness, 
but  the  outcome  is  not  the  old  Europe,  not  simply  the  devel- 
opment of  Germanic  germs,  any  more  than  the  first  phenom- 
enon was  a case  of  reversion  to  the  Germanic  mark.  The  fact 
is,  that  boro  is  a iipw  pr.^lupt  tRof  Is /American,  j At  first,  the 
irontiei^as  the  Atlantic  coast.  It  was  the  frontier  of  Europe 
in  a very  real  sense.  Moving  westward,  the  frontier  became  ; 

As  succe.ssive  terminal  moraines 
result  from  successive  glaciations,  .so  each  frontier  leaves  its 
traces  behind  it,  and  whenit  becomes  a settlorl  arp^  tRp  r^giAn 
still  partakes  of  the  frontier  characteristics.  Thus  the  advance 
of  the  frontier  has  meant  a steady  movement  away  from  the 
influence  of  Europe,  a steady  growth  of  independence  ou_ 
Ainerican  tines.  And  to  study  this  advance,  the  men  who 
gfStV  Up  iTuder” these  conditions,  and  the  i)oliticaI,  economic, 
and  social  results  of  it,  is  to  study  the  really  American  part 
of  our  history. 


202 


AMERICAN  HISTORICAL  ASSOCIATION. 


STAGES  OF  FRONTIER  ADVANCE. 

In  the  course  of  the  seventeenth  century  the  frontier  was 
advanced  np  the  Atlantic  river  courses,  jnst  beyond  the  “tali'/ 
line,  ”an<l  the  tidewater  region  became  the  settled  area.- '^n 
the  tirst  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  another  advance 
occurred.  Traders  followed  the  Delaware  and  Shawnese 
Indians  to  the  Ohio  as  early  as  the  end  of  the  first  (juarter  of 
the  century.*  (tov,  Spotswood,  of  Virginia,  made  an  expedi-v/ 
tion  in  17 14  across  the  Blue  Ridge.  The  end  of  the  first  quarter 
(d*  the  century  saw  the  advance  of  the  Scotch-Irish  and  the 
Palatine  Germans  up  the  Shenandoah  Valley  into  the  west- 
ern part  of  Virginia,  and  along  the  Piedmont  region  of  the 
Carolinas. f The  Germans  in  New  York  pushed  the  fron- 
tier of  settlement  up  the  IMohawk  to  German  Flats. J In  Penn- 
sylvania the  town  of  Bedford  imlicates  the  line  of  settlement. 
Settlements  had  begun  on  New  River,  a branch  of  the  Kana- 
wha, and  on  the  sources  of  the  Yadkin  and  French  Broad.§ 
The  King  attempted  to  arrest  the  advance  by  his  proclamation 
of- 1703,11  forbidding  settlements  beyond  the  sources  of  the 
rivers  tlowing  into  the  Atlantic;  but  in  vain.  In  the  pei’iod 
of  the  Revolution  the  frontier  crossed  the  Alleghanies  into 
Kentucky  and  Tenneseee,  and  the  upper  waters  of  the  Ohio 
were  settled.*]  When  the  first  census  was  taken  in  1790,  the 
continuous  settled  area  was  bounded  by  a line  which  ran  near 
the  coast  of  Maine,  and  included  IS  ew  England  except  a portion 
of  Vermont  and  New  Hampshire,  New  York  along  the  Hudson 
and  up  the  Mohawk  about  Schenectady,  eastern  and  southern 
Pennsylvania,  Virginia  well  across  the  Shenandoah  Valley, 

• * Ilaiicrolt  (I860  ed.),  Ill,  pp.  344,  345,  citing  Logan  MSS.;  [Mitchell] 
Contest  in  America,  etc.  (1752),  p.  237. 

Kercheval,  History  of  the  Valley;  Bernheim,  German  Settlements  in 
the  Carolinas;  Winsor,  Narrative  and  Critical  History  of  America,  v,  p. 
304;  Colonial  Records  of  North  Carolina,  IV,  p.  xx ; Weston,  Documents 
Connected  with  the  History  of  South  Carolina,  p.  82;  Ellis  and  Evans, 
History  of  Lancaster  County,  Pa.,  chs.  iii,  xxvi. 

tParkman,  Pontiac,  ii;  Griffis,  Sir  XV  LUiam  Johnson,  p.  6;  Simms’s 
Frontiersmen  of  New  York. 

^•Monette,  Mississippi  Valley,  i,  p.  311. 

||Wis.  Hist.  Cols.,  XI,  p.  50;  Hinsdale,  Old  Northwest,  p.  121;  Burke, 

“ Oration  on  Conciliation,”  Works  (1872  ed.),  i,  p.  473. 

^ Roosevelt,  Winning  of  the  West,  and  citations  there  given;  Ctitler’s 
Life  of  Cutler. 


FKOXTIER  IN  AMERICAN  HISTORY — TL'RNER.  203 


and  the  Caroliiias  and  eastern  Geor<ria.*  Beyond  this  region 
of  continuous  settlement  were  tlie  small  settled  areas  of  Ken- 
tucky and  Tennessee,  and  the  Ohio,  with  the  mountains  inter- 
vening between  them  and  the  Atlantic  area,  thus  giving  a new 
and  important  character  to  the  frontier.  The  isolation  of  the 
region  increased  its  peculiarly  American  tendencies,  and  the 
need  of  transportation  facilities  to  connect  it  with  the  East 
called  out  important  schemes  of  internal  improvement,  which 
will  be  noted  farther  on.  The  “West,”  as  a self-conscious 
section,  began  to  evolve. . 

From  decade  to  decade  distinct  advances  of  the  frontier 
occurred.  By  the  census  of  1820 1 the  settled  area  included 
Ohio,  .southern  Indiana  and  Illinois,  southeastern  .Missouri,  and 
about  one-half  of  Louisiana.  This  settled  area  had  surrounded 
Indian  areas,  and  the  management  of  these  tribes  became  an 
object  of  political  concern.  The  frontier  region  of  the  time  lay 
along  the  Great  Lakes,  where  Astor’s  American  Fur  Company 
operated  in  the  Indian  trade,!  and  beyond  the  Mississippi, 
where  Indian  traders  extended  their  activity  even  to  the 
Rocky  Mountains;  Florida  also  furnished  frontier  conditions. 
The  Mississippi  River  region  was  the  scene  of  typical  frontier 
settlements.§ 


■“Scribner’s  Statistical  Atlas,  xxxviii,  pi.  13;  !MacMaster,  Hist,  of  Peo- 
ple of  U.  S.,  I,  pp.  ^ 60,  61;  Imlay  and  Filson,  Western  Territory  of 
America  (London,  1793) ; Rochefoucault.-Liancourt,  Travels  Throngh  the 
United  States  of  North  America  (London,  1799);  Michaux’s  “Journal,”  in 
Proceedings  American  Philosophical  Society,  XX vi,  No.  129;  Forman, 
Narrative  of  a .lourney  Down  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  in  1780-’90  (Cincin- 
nati, 1888);  Bartram,  Travels  Through  North  Carolina,  etc.  (London, 
1792);  Pope,  Tour  Through  the  Southern  and  Western  Territories,  etc. 
(Richmon3j'1792) ; Weld,  Travels  Through  the  States  of  North  America 
(London,  1799);  Baily,  Journal  of  a Tour  in  the  Unsettled  States  of  North 
America,  1796  -’97  (London,  1856) ; PennsylvaniaMagazineof  History,  July, 
1886;  Winsor,  Narr.ative  and  Critical  History  of  America,  vii,  pp.  491, 
492,  citations.  y 

t Scribner’s  Statistical  Atlas,  xxxix,r 

{Turner,"  Character  and  Influenc^  of  the  Indian  Trade  in  Wisconsin 
(Johns  Hopkins  University  Studies,  Series  ix),  pp.  61  ff. 

'JMonette,  History  of  the  Mississippi  Valley,  ii;  Flint,  Travels  and 
Residence  in  Mississippi ; Flint,  Geography  and  History  of  the  Western 
States;  Abridgment  of  Debates  of  Congress,  vii,  pp.  397,  398,  404;  Holmes, 
Account  of  the  U.  S.;  Kingdom,  America  and  the  British  Colonies  (Lon- 
don, 1820);  Grand,  Americans,  ii,/ chs.  i,  iii,  vi  (although  writing  in 
1836,  he  treats  of  conditions  that  grew  out  of  western  advance  from  the 


204 


AMERICAN  HISTORICAL  ASSOCIATION. 


The  rising  steam  navigation* * * * §  on  western  waters,  the  opening  / 
of  the  Erie  Canal,  and  the  M’estward  extension  of  cotton  t culture 
added  five  frontier  states  to  the  Union  in  this  period.''^"^Jrund, 
writing  iii  183(1,  declares:  It  api)ears  tlien  that  the  universal 

dis])osition  of  Americans  to  emigrate  to  the  western  wilderness, 

/li  order  to  enlarge  their  dominion  over  inanimate  nature,  is  the 
actual  result  of  aij_exjmiisice4HuvAn^vMciLjAij4*erent  in  them, 
and  which  by  continually  agitating  all  classes  of  society  is 
constantly  throwing  a large  portion  of  the  whole  population 
on  the  extreme  confines  of  the  State,  in  order  to  gain  space  for 
its  development.  Hardly  is  a new  State  or  Territory  formed 
before  the  same  principle  manifests  itself  again- and  gives  j*ise 
to  a further  emigration;  and  so  is  it  destined  to  go  on  until  a 
physical  barrier  must  finally  obstruct  its  pi'Ogress.”^ 

In  the  middle  of  this  century  the  line  indicated  by  the  present 
eastern  boundary  of  Indian  Territory,  Nebraska,  and  Kansas 
marked  the  frontier  of  the  Indian  country.  § Minnesota  and 

era  of  18li0  to  that  time);  Peck,  Guide  for  lAiiigrauts  (Boston,  1831);  . 
Darby,  Emigrants’  Guide- to  Western  and  Southwestern  States  and  Terri- 
tories; Dana,  Geogra2iliical  Sketches  in  the  Western  Country;  Kinzie, 
Waulmn ; Keating,  Narrative  of  Long’s  Expedition  : Schoolcraft,  Discovery 
of  the  Sources  of  tlie  Mississii)pi  Ri\'er,  Travels  in  the  Central  Portions  of 
the  Mississiiipi  Valley,  and  Lead  Mines  of  the  Missouri;  Andreas,  History 
of  Illinois,  I,  86-99;  Hurlbut,  Chicago  Antiquities;  McKenney,  Tour  to 
the  Lakes;  Thomas,  Travels  through  the  Western  Country,  etc.  (Auburn, 

N.  Y.,  1819). 

* Darby,  Emigrants’  Guide,  i)p.  272  ff. ; Benton,  Abridgment  of  Debates, 

VII,  p.  397. 

t De  Bow’s  Review,  iv,  ju  251;  .wii,  j).  428. 

t Grund,  Americans,  ii,  p.  8. 

§ Peck,  New  Guide  to  the  West  (Cincinnati,  1848),  ch.  iv;  Parkman, 
Oregon  Trail;  Hall,  The  West  (Cincinnati,  1848) ; Pierce,  Incidents  of 
Western  Travel ; Murray,  Travels  in  North  America;  Lloyd,  Steamboat 
Directory  (Cincinnati,  1856);  “Forty  Days  in  a Western  Hotel”  (Chi- 
cago), in  Putnam’s  Magazine,  December,  1894;  Mackay,  The  AVestern 
World,  II,  ch.  II,  III;  Sleeker.  Life  in  the  West;  Bogen,  German  in  Amer- 
ica (Boston,  1851);  Olmstead,  Texas  Journey;  Greeley,  Recollections  of  a 
Bus}'  Life;  Schouler,  History  of  the  United  States,  v,  261-267;  Peyton, 

Over  tlie  Alleghauies  and  Across  the  Prairies  (Loudon,  1870) ; Loughbor- 
ough, The  Pacific  Telegraph  and  Railway  (St.  Louis,  1849);  Whitney, 
Project,  for  a Railroad  to  the  Pacific  (New  York,  1849);  Peyton,  .Sugges- 
tions on  Railroad  Communication  with  the  Pacific,  and  the  Trade  of 
China  and  the  Indian  Islands;  Benton,  Highway  to  the  Pacific  (a  speech 
delivered  in  the  U.  S.  Senate,  December  16,  1850). 


FRONTIER  IN  AMERICAN  HISTORY — Tl'RNER.  205 


Wisconsin  still  exhibited  frontier  conditions,*  but  the  dis- 
tinctive frontier  of  the  period  is  found  in  California,  where 
the  gold  discoveries  had  sent  a sudden  tide  of  adventurous 
miners,  and  in  Oregon,  and  the  settleuients  in  Utah.t  As  the 
frontier  has  leaped  over  the  Alleghanies,  so  now  it  skipped 
the  Great  Plains  and  the  liocky  IMouutaius;  and  in  the  same 
way  that  the  advance  of  the  frontiersmen  beyond  the  Alle- 
ghanies had  caused  the  rise  of  important  questions  of  traus- 
portatiou  and  internal  improvement,  so  now  the  settlers  beyond 
the  Itocky  IMouutains  needed  means  of  communication  with 
the  East,  and  in  the  furnishing  of  these  arose  the  settlement 
of  the  Great  Plains  and  the  development  of  still  another  kind 
of  frontier  life.  Railroads,  Ibstered  by  land  grants,  sent  an 
increasing  tide  of  immigrants  into  the  far  West.  The  United 
States  Army  fought  a series  of  Indian  wars  in  Minnesota, 
Dakota,  and  the  Indian  Territory. 

By  ISSO  the  settled  area  had  been  pushed  into  northern 
Michigan,  AVisconsin,  and  Minnesota,  along  Dakota  rivers,  and 
in  the  Black  Hills  region,  and  was  ascending  the  rivers  of  Kan- 
sas and  Kebraska.  The  development  of  mines  in  Colorado  had 
drawn  isolated  frontier  settlements  into  that  region,  and  Mon- 
tana and  Idaho  were  receiving  settlers.  The  frontier  was  fouud 
in  these  mining  camps  and  the  ranches  of  the  Great  Plains. 
The  superintendent  of  the  census  for  1S0(»  reports,  as  previously 
stated,  that  the  settlements  of  the  West  lie  so  scattered  over 
the  region  that  there  can  no  longer  be  said  to  be  a frontier  line. 

In  these  successive  frontiers  we  find  natural  boundary  lines 
which  have  served  to  mark  and  to  atfect  the  characteristics  of 
the  frontiers,  namely:  The  “ fall  line;”  the  Alleghanj^  Mouu- 
tains;  the  Mississippi;  the  Missouri,  where  its  direction  ap- 
proximates north  and  south;  the  line  of  the  arid  lauds,  approx- 
imately the  ninety-ninth  meridian;  and  the  Rocky  Aloun tains. 
The  fall  line  marked  the  frontier  of  the  seventeenth  century; 
the  Alleghanies  that  of  the  eighteenth ; the  Mississippi  that  of 

* A writer  iu  The  Home  Missionary  (1850),  p.  230,  reporting  tVis'-onsin 
conditions,  exclaims:  "Think  of  this,  people  of  the  enlightened  East. 
AVhat  an  example,  to  come  from  the  very  frontiers  of  civilization  !”  But 
one  of  the  missionaries  writes:  "In  a few  years  Wisconsin  will  no  longer 
be  considered  as  the  West,  or  as  .an  outpost  of  civilization,  any  more  than 
western  New  York,  or  the  Western  Reserve."' 

tBancroft  (H.  H.),  History  of  California,  History  of  Oregon,  and  Pop- 
ular Tribunals;  Shinn,  Mining  Camps. 


206 


"--AMERICAN  HISTORICAL  ASSOCIATION. 

tlie  th'st  quarter  of  tlie  iiineteeiitli ; tlie  Missouri  that  of  the 
middle  of  this  century  (omitting  the  California  movement);  and 
the  belt  of  the  Rocky  INIountaims  and  the  arid  tract,  the  ])res- 
eut  frontier.  Each  was  won  by  a series  of  Indian  wars. 

THE  FRON'I’lEK  FURNISHES  A FIELD  FOR  OOMl’ARATIVE 
STUDY  OF  SOCl.\L  DEVELOPMENT. 

At  the  Atlantic  froutier  one  can  study  the,  germs  of  i)roces- 
ses  repeated  at  each  successive  frontier.  We  have  the  complex 
Euro])ean  life  shar])ly  precipitated  by  the  wilderness  into  the 
simplicity  of  jirimitive  conditions.  The  first  frontier  had  to 
meet  its  Indian  question,  its  question  of  the  disjiosition  of  the 
juiblic  domain,  of  the  means  of  iiiTercourse  with  older  settle- 
ments, of  the  extension  of  political  organization,  of  religious 
and  educational  activity.  And  the  settlement  of  these  and 
similar  (piestions  for  one  frontier  served  as  a guide  for  the  ue.xt. 
The  American  student  needs  not  to  go  to  the  “ })rim  little  town- 
ships of  Sleswick”  for  illustrations  of  the  law  of  continuity  and 
development.  For  example,  he  maj'  study  the  origin  of  our 
land  policies  in  the  colonial  land  policy;  he  may  see  how  the 
system  grew  by  adapting  the  statutes  to  the  customs  of  the 
successive  frontiers.*  He  may  see  how  the  mining  experience 
in  the  lead  regions  of  Wisconsin,  Illinois,  and  Iowa  was  applied 
to  the  mining  laws  of  the  Rockies,!  and  how  our  Indian  policy 
has  been  a series  of  experimentations  on  successive  frontiers. 
Each  tier  of  new  States  has  found  in  the  older  ones  Jiiaterial 
for  its  constitutions. + Each  frontier  has  made  similar  contri- 
butions to  American  character,  as  will  be  discussed  farther  on. 

But  with  all  these  similarities  there  are  essential  differences, 
due  to  the  place  element  and  the  time  element.  It  is  evident 
that  the  farming  frontier  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  'presents 
different  conditions  from  the  mining  frontier  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains.  The  frontier  reached  by  the  Pacific  Railroad,  sur- 
veyed into  rectangles,  guarded  by  the  United  States  Army,  and 
recruited  bj"  the  daily  immigrant  ship,  moves  forward  at  a 
swifter  ]>ace  and  in  a different  Avay  than  the  frontier  reached 
by  the  birch  canoe  or  the  pack  horse.  The  geologist  traces 

* See  the  suggestive  paper  by  Prof.  Jesse  Macy,  The  lustitutioual  Begin- 
nings of  a Western  State. 

t Shinn,  Mining  Camps. 

i Compare  Thorpe,  in  Annals  American  Academy  of  Political  and  Social 
Science,  September, 1891 ; Bryce,  American  Common  wealth(1888),  ii,  p.  689. 


FRONTIER  IN  AMERICAN  HISTORY TURNER. 


207 


patiently  the  shores  of  ancient  seas,  maps  their  areas,  and  com- 
pares the  older  and  the  newer.  It  would  be  a work  worth  the 
historian’s  labors  to  mark  these  various  frontiers  and  in  detail 
coni])are  one  with  another.  Isot  only  would  there  result  a more 
adequate  conception  of  American  develoi>ment  and  character- 
istics, but  invaluable  additions  would  be  made  to  the  history 
of  society. 

Loria,*  the  Italian  economist,  has  uiged  the  .study  of  colo- 
nial life  as  an  aid  in  understandiu";  the  stages  of  European 
development,  affirming  that  colonial  settlement  is  for  economic 
science  what  the  mountain  is  for  geology,  bringing  to  light 
primitivec^tratilications.  “America,'’  he  says,  “has  the  key  to 
the  historical  enigma  which  Kuro])e  has  sought  for  centuries  in 
vain,  and  the  land  which  has  no  history  reveals  luminously  the 
course  of  universal  history.”  There  is  much  truth  in  this.  The 
Enited  States  lies  like  a huge  ])age  in  the  history  of  society. 
Line  by  line  as  we  read  tliis  continental  page  fromwe.st  ti>east 
Ave  tind  the  record  of  social  evolution.  It  begins  with  the 
Indian  and  the  hunter;  it  goes  on  to  tell  of  the  disintegration 
of  savagery  by  the  entrance  of  the  trader,  the  nathllnder  of 
civilizatiprLg  we  read  the  annals  of  the  ])astoi  al  stage  in  ranch 
life;  the  exploitation  of  the  soil  by  the  raising  of  unrotated 
crops  of  corn  and  wheat  in  sparsely  settled  farming  communi- 
ties; the  intensive  culture  of  the  denser  farm  settlement ; and 
finally  the  manufacturing  organization  Avith  city  and  factory 
system,  t This  page  is  familiar  to  the  student  of  census  sta- 
tistics, but  how  little  of  it  has  been  used  by  our  historians. 
Particularly  in  eastern  States  this  i»age  is  a palinq)sest. 
What  is  uoA\’  a manufacturing  State  Avas  i!i  an  earlier  decade 
an  area  of  intensive  farming.  Earlier  yet  it  had  been  a wheat 
area,  and  still  earlier  the  “ range”  had  attracted  the  cattle- 
herder.  Thus  Wisconsin,  now  developing  manufacture,  is  a 
State  with  A'aried  agricultural  interests.  But  earlier  it  was 
gh'en  OA’er  to  almost  exclusive  grain-raising,  like  ISTorth  Dakota 
at  the  present  time. 

Each  of  these  areas  has  had  an  intiuence  in  our  economic 

*Loria,  Aiialisi  della  Proprieta  Capitalista,  ii.,  p.  15. 

t Compare  Observations  on  the  North  American  Land  Company,  Loudon, 
1796,  pp.  XV,  144;  Logan,  History  of  Upper  South  Carolina,  i,  pp.  149-151; 
Turner,  Character  and  Influence  of  Indian  Trade  in  AViscousin,  p.  18 ; Peck, 
New  Guide  for  Emigrants  (Boston,  1837),  ch.  iv;  Compendium  Eleventh 
Census,  i,  p.  xl. 


AMEKICAX  HISTORICAL  ASSOCIATION. 


2().S 


and  political  history;  the  evolution  of  each  into  a higher 
stage  lias  worked  political  transformations.  But  what  consti- 
tutional historian  has  made  any  adeipiate  attemjitto  interpret 
political  facts  by  tin'  light  of  these  social  areas  and  changes?* 

d'lie  Atlantic  frontier  was  compounded  of  lisherman,  fur- 
trader,  miner,  cattle  raiser,  and  farmer  Excepting  the  hsher- 
man,  each  type  of  industry  was  on  the  march  toward  the  West, 
impelled  by  an  irresistible  attraction.  Each  jiassed  in  succes- 
sive waves  across  the  continent.  Stand  at  Cumberland  Gap 
and  watch  the  procession  of  civilization,  marching  single  lile — 
the  bufl'alo  following  the  trail  to  the  salt  springs,  the  Indian, 
the  fur-trader  and  hunter,  the  cattle-raiser,  the  pioneer  farmer — 
and  the  frontier  has  ]iassed  by.  Stand  at  South  Pass  in  the 
Bockies  a century  later  and  see  the  same  jirocession  with 
wider  intervals  between.  The  unequal  rate  of  advance  com- 
pels us  to  distingui.sh  the  frontier  into  the  trader’s  frontier,  the 
rancher’s  frontier,  or  the  miner’s  frontier,  and  the  farmer’s 
frontier.  When  the  mines  and  the  cow  pens  were  still  neai' 
the  fall  line  the  tiaders’  pack  trains  were  tinkling  across  the 
Alleghanies,  and  the  French  on  the  Great  Lakes  were  fortify- 
ing their  posts,  alarmed  by  the  British  trader’s  birch  canoe. 
AVhen  the  trappers  scaled  the  Bockies,  the  farmer  was  still 
near  the  month  of  the  Missouri. 

THE  INDIAN  TRADER'S  FRONTIER. 

Why  was  it  that  the  Indian  trader  passed  so  rapidly  across 
the  continent?  What  etfects  followed  from  the  ti'ader’s 
frontier?  The  trade  was  coeval  with  American  discovery. 
The  Norsemen,  Vespuccius,  Verrazani,  Hudson,  John  Smith, 
all  trafficked  for  fnrs.  The  Plymouth  pilgrims  settled  in  Indian 
cornfields,  and  their  first  return  cargo  was  of  beaver  and  lum- 
ber. The  records  of  the  various  New  England  colonies  show 
how  steadily  exploration  was  carried  into  the  wilderness  by 
this  trade.  What  is  true  for  New  England  is,  as  would  be 
expected,  even  plainer  for  the  rest  of  the  colonies.  All  along 
the  coast  from  Maine  to  Georgia  the  Indian  trade  opened  up 
the  river  courses.  Steadily  the  trader  passed  westward, 
utilizing  the  older  lines  of  French  trade.  The  Ohio,  the  Great 
Lakes,  the  Mississippi,  the  Missouri,  and  the  Platte,  the  lines 
of  western  advance,  were  ascended  by  traders.  They  found 

* See  pages  220,  221,  223,  pos/,  for  illustrations  of  the  political  accompani- 
ments of  changed  industrial  conditions. 


FRONTIER  IN  AMERICAN  HISTORY TURNER.  209 


the  passes  iu  the  Eoeky  Mountains  and  guided  Lewis  and 
Clarke,*  Fremont,  and  Bidwell.  The  explanation  of  (he 
rapidity  of  this  advance  is  connected  with  the  effects  of  the 
trader  on  the  Indian.  The  trading'  post  left  the  unarmed 
tribes  at  the  mercy  of  those  that  had  purchased  tire-arms — a 
truth  which  the  Iroipiois  Indians  wrote  in  blood,  and  so  the 
remote  and  unvisitcd  tribes  gaA’e  eager  welcome  to  the  trader. 
‘‘The  savages,’’  wrote  La  Salle,  “take  better  care  of  us  French 
than  of  their  own  children;  from  us  only  can  they  get  guns 
and  goods.”  This  accounts  for  the  trader’s  power  and  the 
rapidity  of  his  advance.  Thus  the  disintegrating  forces  of 
civilization  entered  the  wilderness.  Every  river  valley  and 
Indian  trail  became  a fissure  in  Indian  society,  and  so  that 
society  became  honeycombed.  Long  before  the  pioneer  farmer 
appeared  on  the  scene,  primitive  Indian  life  had  passed  away. 
The  farmers  met  Indians  armed  with  guns.  The  trading 
frontier,  while  steadily  undermiinng  Indian  power  by  making 
the  tribes  ultimately  dependent  on  the  whites,  yet,  through  its 
sale  of  guns,  gave  to  the  Indians  increased  power  of  resistance  | 
to  the  farming  frontier.  French  colonization  was  dominated  , 
by  its  trading  frontier;  English  colonization  b}"  its  farming 
frontier.  There  was  an  antagonism  between  the  two  frontiers 
as  between  the  t'n  o nations.  Said  Duquesne  to  the  Iroquois, 
“Are  you  ignorant  of  the  difference  between  the  king  of  Eng- 
land and  the  king  of  France?  Go  see  the  forts  that  our  king 
has  established  and  you  will  see  that  you  can  still  hunt  luider 
their  very  walls.  They  have  been  placed  for  your  advantage 
in  places  which  you  frequent.  The  English,  on  the  contraiy, 
are  no  sooner  in  possession  of  a place  than  the  game  is  driven 
away.  The  forest  falls  before  them  as  they  advance,  and  the 
soil  is  laid  bare  so  that  you  can  scarce  find  the  wherewithal  to 
erect  a shelter  for  the  night.” 

And  yet,  iu  spite  of  this  opposition  of  the  interests  of  the 
trader  and  the  farmer,  the  Indian  trade  pioneered  the  way 
for  civilization.  The  buff’alo  trail  became  the  Indian  trail, 
and  this  because  the  trader’s  “trace;”  the  trails  widened  into 
roads,  and  the  roads  into  turnpikes,  and  these  iu  turn  were 
transformed  into  railroads.  The  same  origin  can  be  shown 
for  the  railroads  of  the  South,  the  far  West,  and  the  Dominion 


*But  Lewis  and  Clarke  were  tke  first  to  explore  the  route  from  the 
Missouri  to  the  Columbia. 

S.  Mis.  104 14 


210 


AMERICAN  HISTORICAL  ASSOCIATION, 


of  ( 'iuiada.*  The  trading-  posts  readied  by  these  trails  -were 
oil  the  sites  of  Indian  villages  tvliidi  had  been  placed  in 
positions  suggested  by  nature;  and  these  trading  jiosts, 
situated  so  as  to  connnand  the  lAUiter  systems  of  the  country, 
have  groAvn  into  such  cities  as  Albany,  rittsburg,  Detroit, 
Chicago,  St.  Louis,  Council  Bluffs,  and  Kansas  City.  Thus 
civilizatiou  in  America  has  followed  the  arteries  made  bj" 
geology,  pouring  an  ever  richer  tide  through  them,  until  at 
last  the  slender  paths  of  aboriginal  intercourse  have  been 
broadened  and  interwoven  into  the  complex  mazes  of  modern 
commercial  lines;  the  wilderness  has  been  interpenetrated  by 
lines  of  civilization  giowing  evermore  numerous.  It  is  like 
the  steady  growth  of  a complex  nervous  system  for  the 
originally  simple,  inert  continent.  If  one  would  understand 
why  Ave  are  to-day  one  nation,  rather  than  a collection  of 
isolated  states,  he  must  study  this  economic  and  social  con- 
solidation of  the  country.  In  this  progress  from  saAvage  con- 
ditions lie  topics  for  the  evolutionist.! 

The  effect  of  the  Indian  frontier  as  a consolidating  agent  in 
our  history  is  important.  From  the  close  of  the  seventeenth 
century  Avarious  intercolonial  congresses  haA'e  been  called  to 
treat  with  Indians  and  establish  common  measures  of  defense. 
Particularism  was  strongest  in  colonies  Avith  no  Indian  frontier. 
This  frontier  stretched  along  the  AA'estern  border  like  a cord  of 
union.  The  Indian  was  a common  danger,  demanding  united 
action.  Most  celebrated  of  these  conferences  was  the  Albany 
congress  of  1754,  called  to  treat  with  the  Six  Kations,  and  to 
consider  iilans  of  union.  EA'en  a cursory  reading  of  the  plan 
lAroposed  by  the  congress  reAmals  the  imiiortance  of  the  frontier. 
The  i)owers  of  the  general  council  and  the  officers  were,  chiefly, 
the  determination  of  peace  and  war  with  the  Indians,  the  regu- 
lation of  Indian  trade,  the  purchase  of  Indian  lands,  and  the 
creation  and  government  of  new  settlements  as  a security 
against  the  Indians.  It  is  evident  that  the  unifying  tenden- 
cies of  the  ReAmlutionary  period  were  facilitated  by  the  previous 
cooperation  in  the  regulation  of  the  frontier.  In  this  connec- 
tion may  be  mentioned  the  importance  of  the  frontier,  from 

* Narrative  aud  Critical  History  of  America,  auii,  p.  10;  Sparks’  AA’ask- 
ingtou  AA’orks,  IX,  pp.  303,  327 ; Logan,  History  of  Upper  South  Carolina, 
i;  McDonald,  Life  of  Kenton,  p.  72;  Cong.  Record,  xxiii,  p.  57. 

+ On  the  effect  of  the  fur  trade  in  opening  the  routes  of  migration,  see 
the  author’s  Character  and  luflueiice  of  the  Indian  Trade  in  AVisconsin. 


/ 


FRONTIER  IN  AMERICAN  HISTORl’ — TURNER.  211 


that  (lay  to  this,  as  a military  traiiiiug  school,  keepiug'  alive 
the  ijower  of  resistance  to  aggression,  and  developing  the  stal- 
wart and  rugged  qualities  of  the  frontiersman. 

THE  rancher’s  FRONTIER. 

It  would  not  be  possible  in  the  limits  of  this  paper  to  trace 
the  other  frontiers  across  the  continent.  Travelers  of  the 
eighteenth  century  found  the  “cowpens”  among  the  cane- 
bi'akes  and  pea  vine  pastures  of  the  South,  and  the  “cow 
drivers”  took  their  droves  to  Charleston,  Philadelphia,  andlNew 
York.*  Travelers  at  the  close  of  the  War  of  1S12  met  droves 
of  more  than  a thousand  cattle  and  swine  from  the  interior  of 
Ohio  going  to  Pennsjdvania  to  fatten  for  the  Philadelphia  mar- 
ket.! The  ranges  of  the  Great  Plains,  with  ranch  and  cowboy 
and  nomadic  life,  are  things  of  yesterday  and  of  to-day.  The 
experience  of  the  Carolina  cowpens  guided  the  ranchers  of 
Texas.  One  element  favoring  the  rai)id  extension  of  the 
rancher’s  frontier  is  the  fact  that  in  a remote  country  lacking 
transportation  facilities  the  product  must  be  in  small  bulk,  or 
must  be  able  to  transport  itself,  and  the  cattle  raiser  could 
easily  drive  his  product  to  market.  The  effect  of  these  great 
ranches  on  the  subsequent  agrarian  history  of  tbe  localities  in 
which  they  existed  should  be  studied. 

THE  farmer’s  frontier. 

The  maps  of  the  census  reports  show  an  uneven  advance  of 
the  farmer’s  frontier,  with  tongues  of  settlement  pushed  for- 
ward and  with  indentations  of  wilderness.  In  part  this  is  due 
to  Indian  resistance,  in  part  to  the  location  of  river  valleys 
and  passes,  in  part  to  the  unequal  force  of  the  centers  of  fron- 
tier attraction.  Among  the  important  centers  of  attraction 
may  be  mentioned  the  following:  fertile  and  favorably  situated 
soils,  salt  springs,  mines,  and  armj^  posts. 

arm:y  posts. 

The  frontier  army  iiost,  serving  to  protect  the  settlers  from 
the  Indians,  has  also  acted  as  a wedge  to  open  the  Indian 
country,  and  has  been  a nucleus  for  settlement,  f In  this  con- 

’ Lodge,  English  Colonies,  p.  152  and  citations;  Logan,  Hist,  of  Upjier 
South  Carolina,  i,  p.  151. 

t Flint,  Recollections,  p.  9. 

tSee  Monette,  Mississippi  Valley,  i,  p.  34*1. 


212 


AMERICAN  HISTORICAL  ASSOCIATION. 


nection  mention  .should  also  be  made  of  the  Government  mili- 
tary and  exploring  expeditions  in  determining  the  lines  of  set- 
tlement. But  all  the  more  important  expeditions  were  greatly 
indebted  to  the  earliest  pathmakers,  the  Indian  guides,  the 
traders  and  trai)pers,  and  the  French  voyageurs,  who  were 
inevitable  parts  of  governmental  ex])editions  from  the  days  of 
Lewis  and  Clarke.* * * §  Each  expedition  was  an  epitome  of  the 
previous  factors  in  western  advance. 

SALT  SPRINGS. 

In  an  interesting  monograph,  Victor  Helm  f has  traced  the 
effect  of  salt  upon  early  European  development,  and  has 
pointed  out  how  it  affected  the  lines  of  settlement  and  the  form 
of  administration.  A similar  study  might  be  made  for  the 
salt  springs  of  the  United  States.  The  early  .settlers  were  tied 
to  the  coast  by  the  need  of  salt,  without  which  they  could  not 
preserve  their  meats  or  live  in  comfort.  Writing  in  1752, 
Bi.shop  Spangenburg  says  of  a colony  for  which  he  was  seek- 
ing lands  ill  Uorth  Carolina,  “They  will  require  salt  & other 
necessaries  which  they  can  neither  manutacture  nor  raise. 
Either  they  must  go  to  Charleston,  which  is  300  miles  distant 
* * * Or  else  they  mu.st  go  to  Boling's  Point  in  on  a 

branch  of  the  dames  & is  also  300  miles  from  here  * * * 

Or  else  they  must  go  down  the  Roanoke — I know  not  how  many 
miles — where  salt  is  brought  up  from  the  Cape  Fear.”  t This 
may  serve  as  a typical  illustration.  An  annual  pilgrimage  to 
the  coast  for  salt  thus  became  essential.  Taking  Hocks  or 
furs  and  ginseng  root,  the  early  settlers  sent  their  pack  trains 
after  seeding  time  each  3’ear  to  the  coast.§  This  ])roved  to  be 
an  important  educational  influence,  since  it  was  almost  the 
only  way  in  which  the  pioneer  learned  what  was  going  on  in 
the  East.  But  when  discovery  was  made  of  the  salt  springs 
of  the  Kana  wha,  and  the  Holston,  and  Kentuck^y,  and  central 
Kew  York,  the  West  began  to  be  freed  from  dependence  on 
the  coast.  It  was  in  part  the  effect  of  finding  these  salt  si)rings 
that  enabled  settlement  to  cross  the  mountains. 

*Coues',  Lewis  <aud  Clarke's  Expedition,  i.  pp.  '2,  253-259;  Benton,  in 
Con"grEerord,  Uxni,  p. 

tllelin,  Das  Salz  (Berlin,  1873). 

tCoI.  Records  of  N.  C.,  v,  p.  3. 

§ Findley,  History  of  the  Insurrection  in  the  Four  tVesteru  Counties 
of  Pennsylvania  in  the  Year  1794  (Philadelphia,  179G),  p.  35. 


i 


FROXTIEK  IN  AMERICAN  HISTORY — TURNER. 


213 


From  tlie  time  the  mountains  rose  between  the  pioneer  and 
the  seaboard,  a new  order  of  Americanism  arose.  The  West 
and  the  East  began  to  g’et  out  of  touch  of  each  other.  The 
settlements  from  the  sea  to  the  mountains  kept  connection 
with  the  rear  and  had  a certain  solidarity.  But  the  over- 
mountain  men  grew  more  and  more  independent.  The  East 
took  a narrow  view  of  American  advance,  and  nearly  lost  these 
men.  Kentucky  and  Tennessee  history  bears  aljundant  wit- 
ness to  the  truth  of  this  statement.  The  East  began  to  try  to 
hedge  and  limit  we.stward  expansion.  Though  Webster  could 
declare  that  there  were  no  Alleghanies  in  his  ]>olitics.  yet  in 
politics  in  general  tliey  were  a very  solid  factor. 


LAND. 

The  exploitation  of  the  beasts  took  hunter  and  trader  to  the 
west,  the  exploitation  of  the  grasses  took  the  rancher  west, 
and  the  exploitation  of  the  virgin  soil  of  the  river  valleys  and 
prairies  attracted  the  farmer.  Good  soils  have  been  the  most 
continuous  attraction  to  the  farmer’s  frontier.  The  land  hun- 
ger of  the  Virginians  drew  them  down  the  rivers  into  Carolina, 
in  early  colonial  days;  the  search  for  soils  took  the  Massa- 
chusetts men  to  Pennsylvania  and  to  Kew  A'ork.  As  the 
eastern  lands  were  taken  up  migration  flowed  across  them  to 
the  west.  Daniel  Boone,  the  great  backwoodsman,  who  com- 
bined the  occupations  of  hunter,  trader,  cattle-raiser,  farmer, 
and  surveyor — learning,  probably  from  the  traders,  of  the 
fertility  of  the  lands  on  the  upper  Yadkin,  where  the  traders 
were  wont  to  rest  as  they  took  their  way  to  the  Indians,  left 
his  Pennsylvania  home  with  his  father,  and  passed  down  the 
Great  Valley  road  to  that  stream.  Learning  from  a trader 
whose  posts  were  on  the  Eeri  Eiver  in  Kentucky  of  its  game 
and  rich  pastures,  he  pioneered  the  way  for  the  frrmers  to  that 
region.  Thence  he  passed  to  the  frontier  of  Missouri,  where 
his  settlement  was  long  a landmark  on  the  frontier.  Here 
again  he  helped  to  open  the  way  for  civilization,  finding  salt 
licks,  and  trails,  and  laud.  His  sou  was  among  the  earliest 
trappers  in  the  passes  of  the  Eocky  Mountains,  and  his  party 
are  said  to  have  been  the  first  to  camp  on  the  present  site  of 
Denver.  His  grandson, _Col.  A.  J.  Boone,  of  Colorado,  was  a 
power  among  the  Indians  of  the  Eocky  Mountains,  and  was 
appointed  an  agent  by  the  Government.  Kit  Carson’s  mother 


214 


AMERICAN  HISTORICAL  ASSOCIATION. 


was  a Boone.*  Thus  this  family  epitomizes  the  baekwoods- 
man’s  advance  across  the  contiiieiit. 

The  farmer’s  advance  came  in  a distinct  series  of  waves.  In 
Peck’s  Kew  Guide  to  the  West,  ])uh]ished  in  Boston  in  1837, 
occurs  this  suggestive  ]»assage : 

Generally,  in  all  the  western  settlements,  three  classes,  like  the.  waves 
of  the  ocean,  have  rolled  one  after  the  other.  First  comes  the  jiioncer, 
who  dei>ends  for  the  subsistence  of  his  family  chietly  upon  the  natural 
growth  of  vegetation,  called  the  “range,”  and  the  iiroceeds  of  hunting. 
Ilis  implements  of  agriculture  are  rude,  chielly  of  his  own  make,  and  his 
efforts  directed  mainly  to  a cro2>  of  corn  and  a “ truck  jtatch.”  The  last 
is  a rude  garden  for  growing  cabbage,  beans,  corn  for  roasting  ears,  encum- 
bers, and  potatoes.  A log  cabin,  and,  occasionally,  a stable  and  corn-crib, 
and  a field  of  a dozen  acres,  the  timber  girdled  or  “ deadened,”  and  fenced, 
are  enough  for  his  occn]iancy.  It  is  (pute  immaterial  whether  he  ever  be- 
comes the  owner  of  the  soil.  He  is  the  occupant  for  the  time  being,  pays 
no  rent,  and  feels  as  independent  as  the  “lord  of  the  manor.”  With  a 
horse,  cow,  and  one  or  two  breeders  of  swine,  he  strikes  into  the  woods 
with  his  family,  and  becomes  the  founder  of  anew  county,  or  iierhaps 
state.  He  builds  his  cabin,  gathers  around  him  a few  other  families  of 
similar  tastes  and  habits,  and  occuiiies  till  the  range  is  somewhat  subdued, 
and  hunting  a little  prec.arions,  or,  which  is  more  frequently  the  case,  till 
the  neighbors  crowd  around,  roads,  bridges,  and  fields  annoy  him,  and  he 
lacks  elbow  room.  The  preemption  law  enables  him  to  disjiose  of  his 
cabin  and  cornfield  to  the  next  class  of  emigrants;  and,  to  employ  his 
own  figures,  he  “breaks  for  the  high  timber,”  “clears  out  for  the  New 
Purchase,”  or  migrates  to  Arkansas  or  Texas,  to  work  the  same  jirocess 
over. 

The  next  class  of  emigrants  purchase  the  lauds,  add  field  to  field,  clear 
out  tlie  roads,  throw  rough  bridges  over  the  streams,  put  up  hewn  log 
houses  with  glass  windows  and  brick  or  stone  cbimneys,  occasionally  plant 
orchards,  build  mills,  schoolhouses,  court-houses,  etc.,  and  exhibit  the 
picture  and  forms  of  plain,  frugal,  civilized  life. 

Another  wave  rolls  on.  The  men  of  capital  and  enteri)rise  come.  The 
settler  is  ready  to  sell  out  and  take  the  advantage  of  the  rise  in  property, 
push  farther  into  the  interior  and  become,  himself,  a man  of  capital  and 
enterprise  in  turn.  The  small  village  rises  to  a spacious  town  or  city; 
substantial  edifices  of  brick,  extensive  fields,  orchards,  gardens,  colleges, 
and  churches  are  seen.  Broadcloths,  silks,  leghorns,  craiies,  and  all  the 
refinements,  luxuries,  elegancies,  frivolities,  and  fashions  are  in  vogue. 
Thus  wave  after  wave  is  rolling  westward;  the  real  Eldorado  is  still 
farther  on. 

A portion  of  the  two  first  classes  remain  stationary  amidst  the  general 
movement,  improve  their  habits  and  condition,  and  ri,?e  in  the  scale  of 
society. 

The  writer  has  traveled  much  amongst  the  first  class,  the  real  pioneers. 
He  has  lived  many  years  in  connection  with  the  second  grade;  and  now 

*Hale,  Daniel  Boone  (pamphlet). 


FRONTIER  IN  AMERICAN  HISTORY TURNER.  215 


tlie  tliini  wave  is  sweeping  over  large  districts  of  Indiana,  Illinois,  and 
Missouri.  Migration  lias  decouie almost  a lial>it  in  the  AYest.  Hundreds 
of  men  can  be  found,  not  over  50  years  of  age,  who  have  settled  for  the 
fourth,  fifth,  or  sixth  time  on  a new  s)iot.  To  sell  out  and  remove  only  a 
fe  hundred  miles  makes  up  a portion  of  the  variety  of  backwoods  life 
and  manners. 

Oiiiittiiig-  those  of  the  ]»ioiieer  fariners  tvho  move  from  the 
love  of  adventure,  the  advance  of  the  more  steady  farmer  is 
easy  to  understand.  Obviou.slj'  the  immigrant  was  attracted 
by  the  cheai)  lands  of  the  frontier,  and  even  the  native  farmer 
felt  their  intluence  strongly.  Year  by  year  the  farmers  who 
lived  on  soil  whose  returns  were  diminished  by  unrotated 
crojis  were  offered  the  virgin  soil  of  the  frontier  at  nominal 
prices.  Their  growing  families  demanded  more  lands,  and 
these  were  dear.  "The  competition  of  the  unexhausted,  cheap, 
and  easily  tilled  ]frairie  lands  compelled  the  farmer  either  to 
go  west  and  continue  the  exhaustion  of  the  soil  on  a new 
frontier,  or  to  adopt  intensive  culture.  Thus  the  census  of 
1800  shows,  in  the  Northwest,  many  counties  in  which  there 
is  an  absolute  or  a relative  decrease  of  population.  These 
States  have  been  sending  farmers  to  advance  the  frontier  on 
the  plains,  and  have  tliemselves  begun  to  turn  to  intensive 
farming  and  to  manufacture.  A decade  before  this,  Ohio  had 
shown  the  same  transition  stage.-  Thus  the  demand  for  land 
and  the  love  of  Avilderness  freedom  drew  the  frontier  eA’er 
onward. 

TIaAung  now  roughly  outlined  the  Amrious  kinds  of  frontiers, 
and  their  modes  of  adAuince,  chiefly  from  the  jioint  of  A’ieAV  of 
the  frontier  itself,  we  may  next  inquire  what  were  the  influences 
on  the  East  and  on  the  Old  World.  A rapid  enumeration  of 
some  of  the  more  noteworthy  effects  is  all  that  I liave  time  for. 

COMPOSITE  NATIONALITY. 

First,  we  note  that  the  frontier  promoted  the  formation  of  a 
composite  nationality  for  the  American  jieople.  The  coast  was 
preponderantly  English,  but  the  later  tides  of  continental  im- 
migration flowed  across  to  the  free  lauds.  This  was  the  case 
from  the  early  colonial  days.  The  Scotch  Irish  and  the  Pala- 

’ Compare  Baily,  Tour  iu  the  Unsettled  Parts  of  Nortli  America  (London, 
1856),  pp.  217-219,  where  a similar  analysis  is  made  for  1796.  See  also 
Collot,  Journey  in  North  America  (Paris,  1826),  p 109;  Observations  on 
the  North  American  Land  Company  (London,  1796),  pp.  xa',  141;  Logan, 
History  of  Upper  South  Carolina. 


2Ki 


AMEKICAN  HISTORICAL  ASSOCIATION. 


tine  Germans,  oi- “Pemisylvaiiia  Dutcli.”  furui-slied  tbe  dom- 
inant clement  in  the  stock  of  the  cf)]ouial  frontier.  With  these 
])eoples  were  also  the  freed  indented  servants,  or  redemi>tioners, 
who  at  the  expiration  of  tlieir  time  of  service  ])assed  to  the 
frontier.  Governor  Spottswood  of  Virginia  writes  in  1717, 
“The  inhabitants  of  our  frontiers  are  composed  geneiallyof 
i-neh  as  liave  been  transporte<l  hither  as  servants,  and,  being' 
out  of  their  time,  settle  tliemselves  where  land  is  to  be  taken 
up  and  that  will  produce  the  necessarys  of  life  with  little 
labuui'.’’*  Very  generally  these  redemptioiiers  were  of  non- 
Eiu^'lish  stock,  f In  the  crucible  of  the  frontier  the  immigrauts 
Avere  Aniericanizeir.  IdTcu-atecTTlin^^  into  a mixed  race, 
JAiiglish  in  neither  nationality  or  chai'acteristics.  The  process 
has  gone  on  from  the  early  days  to  our  own,  fllurke  and  other 
writers  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  believed  that 
Pennsylvania  t Avas  “threatened  Avith  the  danger  of  being 
Avholly  foreign  in  language,  manners,  and  iierhajis  ev'en  inclina- 
tions.” The  German  and  Scotch-lrish  elements  in  the  frontier 
of  the  South  were  only  less  great.  In  the  middle  of  the  present 
century  the  German  element  in  Wisconsin  was  already  so 
considerable  that  leading  publicists  looked  to  the  creation  of  a 
German  state  out  of  the  commonwealth  by  concentrating  their 
colonization. t Such  examiiies  teach  us  to  beware  of  misinter- 
]ireting  the  fact  that  there  is  a coinmoii  ^English  .speech  in 
America  into  a belief  that  the  stock  is  also  English. 


INDUSTRIAL  INDEPENDENCE. 


In  another  way"  the  advance  of  the  frontier  decreased  our 
dependence  on  England.  The  coast,  particularly  of  the  South, 
lacked  diversified  indmstries,  and  Avas  dependent  on  England 
for  the  bulk  of  its  supplies.  In  the  South  there  was  et^en  a 
dei)endence  on  the  Northern  colonies  for  articles  of  food.  GaA^- 
ernor  Glenn,  of  South  Carolina,  Avrites  in  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century:  “Our  trade  Avith  Aew  York  and  Philadel- 
phia was  of  this  sort,  draining  us  of  all  the  little  money  and 
bills  we  could  gather  from  other  places  for  their  bread,  flour, 
beer,  hams,  bacon,  and  other  things  of  their  produce,  all  which, 
except  beer,  our  new  townships  begin  to  suiiplj'  us  with,  which 


* “ Spottswood  Papers,’'  iu  Collections  of  Virginia  Historical  Society, 

1,11, 

t [Burke],  European  Settlements,  etc.  (1765  ed.),  ii,  p.  200. 

♦ Everest,  in  AA’isconsin  Historical  Collections,  xii,  jip.  7 ff 


FRONTIER  IX  AMERICAN  HISTORY TURNER. 


217 


are  settled  with  very  industrious  and  thriving  Germans.  This 
no  doubt  diminishes  the  number  of  shipping  and  the  api)ear- 
ame  of  our  trade,  but  it  is  far  from  being  a detriment  to  us.”* 
Before  long  the  frontier  created  a demand  for  merchants.  As 
it  retreated  from  the  coast  it  became  less  and  less  possible  for 
England  to  bring  her  sui)])lies  directly  to  the  consumer’s 
wharfs,  and  carry  away  sta])le  cro]>s,  and  staple  crops  began 
to  give  way  to  diversified  agriculture  for  a time.  The  effect 
of  this  phase  of  the  frontier  action  ui>on  the  northern  section 
is  perceived  when  we  realize  how.  the  advance  of  the  frontier 
aroused  seaboard  cities  like  Boston,  Isew  York,  and  Baltimore, 
to  engage  in  rivalry  for  what  AVashington  called  the  exten- 
sive and  valuable  trade  of  a rising  empire.” 

EFFECTS  ON  NATIONAL  LEGISLATION. 

The  legislation  which  most  developed  the  powers  of  the 
National  Government,  and  ]ilaycd  the  largest  ]iart  in  its  activ- 
ity, was  conditioned  on  the  frontier.  AVriters  have  discussed 
the  subjects  of  tariff,  laud,  and  internal  improvement,  as  sub- 
sidiary to  the  slavery  question.  But  when  American  histoiy 
comes  to  be  rightly  viewed  it  will  be  seen  that  the  slavery 
question  is  an  incident.  In  the  period  from  the  end  of  the  first 
half  of  the  present  century  to  the  close  of  the  civil  war  slav- 
eiy  rose  toprimary,  but  far  from  exclusive,  imi)ortance.  But 
this  does  not  justify  Dr.  von  Holst  (to  take  an  example)  in 
treating  our  constitutional  history  in  its  formative  period  down 
to  1S2S  in  a single  volume,  giving  six  volumes  chiefly  to  the 
history  of  slavery  from  1828  to  1801,  under  the  title  “Constitu- 
tional History  of  the  United  States.”  The  growth  of  national- 
ism and  the  evolution  of  American  political  institutions  were 
dependent  on  the  advance  of  the  frontier.  Even  so  recent  a 
writer  as  Bhodes,  in  his  History  of  the  United  States  since  the 
compromise  of  1850,  has  treated  the  legislation  called  out  by 
the  western  advance  as  incidental  to  the  slavery  struggle. 

This  is  a wrong  perspective.  The  pioneer  needed  the  goods  of 
the  coast,  and  so  the  grand  series  of  internal  improvement  and 
railroad  legislation  began,  Avith  poteut  nationalizing  effects. 
Over  internal  improvements  occurred  great  debates,  in  which  ; 
gruA’e  constitutional  questions  were  discussed.  Sectional  ; 
groupings  appear  in  the  votes,  profoundly  significant  for  the  ^ 


tVestoii,  Documeuts  coiinecteil  with  History  of  South  Carolina,  p.  61. 


218 


AMERICAN  HISTORICAL  ASSOCIATION. 


liisturiaii.  Loose  coustructioii  inereased  as  the  nation  marelied 
westward.*  Lut  tlie  West  was  not  content  with  bringing  the 
form  to  the  factory.  Under  the  lead  of  Clay — Harry  of  the 
West’’ — i)rotective  tariffs  were  pas.sed,  with  the  cry  of  bring- 
ing the  factory  to  the  farm.  The  disposition  of  the  public 
lands  was  a third  important  subject  of  national  legislation 
influenced  by  the  frontier. 

THE  PUBLIC  BOMAIN. 

The  ]mblic  domain  has  been  a force  of  profound  importance 
in  the  nationalization  and  development  of  the  Governniei 1 1. 
The  effects  of  the  struggle  of  thelanded  and  the  landless  States, 
and  of  the  ordinance  of  17S7,  need  no  discussion,  t Adminis- 
tratively the  frontier  called  out  some  of  the  highe.st  and  most 
vitalizing  activities  of  the  General  Government.  The  ]nirchase 
of  Louisiana  was  perhaps  the  constitutional  turning  point  in 
the  history  of  the  Eepublic,  inasmuch  as  it  afforded  both  a new 
area  for  national  legislation  and  the  occasion  of  the  downfall 
of  the  policy  of  strict  construction.  But  the  pui’chase  of  Louis- 
iana was  called  out  by  frontier  needs  and  demands.  As  fron- 
tier States  accrued  to  the  Union  the  national  power  grew.  In 
a speech  on  the  dedication  of  the  Calhoun  monument  Jdr. 
Lamar  explained : ‘Hn  17S9  the  States  were  the  creators  of  the 
Federal  Government;  in  ISGl  the  Federal  Government  Avas 
the  creator  of  a large  majority  of  the  States.” 

When  Ave  consider  the  public  domain  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  sale  and  disposal  of  the  luiblic  lands  Ave  are  again  brought 
face  to  face  with  the  frontier.  The  policy  of  the  United  States 
in  dealing  with  its  lands  is  in  sharji  contrast  with  the  European 
system  of  scientific  administration.  Efforts  to  makethis  domain 
a source  of  reA^enue,  and  to  withhold  it  from  emigrants  in  order 
that  settlement  might  be  compact,  were  in  vain.  The  jealousy 
and  the  fears  of  the  East  were  powerless  in  the  face  of  the 
demands  of  the  fiontiersmen.  John  Quincy  Adams  was  obliged 
to  confess:  ‘Oly  own  system  of  administration,  which  was  to 
make  the  national  doiuain  the  inexhaustible  fund  for  progress- 
ive and  unceasing  internal  improvement,  has  failed.”  The 

*See,  for  example,  the  speech  of  Clay,  in  the  House  of  RepresentatiA’es, 
.January  30,  1824. 

tSee  the  admirable  monograph  hy  Prof.  H.  B.  Adams,  Maryland’s  Influ- 
ence on  the  Land  Cessions;  and  also  President  Welling,  in  Papers  Ameri- 
can Historical  Association,  iii,  p.  411. 


FROXTIEIi  IN  AMERICAN  HISTORY TURNER.  219 

reason  is  obvious;  a system  of  administration  was  not  what 
the  West  demanded;  it  wanted  land.  Adams  states  tlie  situa- 
tion as  follows:  “The  slaveholders  of  the  South  have  bous'ht 
the  cooperation  of  the  Avestern  country  by  the  bi’ibe  of  the 
western  lands,  abandoning  to  the  new  Western  States  their 
own  proportion  of  the  public  property  and  aiding  them  in  the 
design  of  grasping  all  thelands  into  their  own  hands.  Thomas 
H.  Benton  was  the  author  of  this  system,  Avhich  he  brought 
forward  as  a substitute  for  the  American  system  of  ]\Ir.  Clay, 
and  to  supplant  him  as  the  leading  statesman  of  the  West. 
Mr.  Clay,  by  his  tariff  compromise  with  IMr.  Calhoun,  aban- 
doned his  own  American  system.  At  the  same  time  he  brought 
forward  a plan  for  distributing  among  all  the  States  of  the 
Union  the  proceeds  of  the  sales  of  the  public  lands.  His  bill 
for  that  purpose  passed  both  Houses  of  Congress,  but  was 
A'etoed  by  President  Jackson,  who,  in  his  annual  message  of 
December,  1832,  formally  recommended  that  all  public  lands 
should  be  gratuitously^  giA'en  aAvay  to  individual  adA^euturers 
and  to  the  States  in  Avhich  the  lands  are  situated.* 

“2s 0 .subject,”  said  Henry  Clay,  “which  has  presented  itself 
to  the  present,  or  perhaps  any  preceding.  Congress,  is  of  greater 
magnitude  than  that  of  the  public  lands.”  AVhen  Ave  consider 
the  far-reaching  effects  of  the  Government’s  land  policy  upon 
l>olitical,  economic,  and  social  aspects  of  American  life,  we  are 
disposed  to  agree  with  him.  But  this  legislation  was  framed 
under  frontier  influences,  and  under  the  lead  of  Western  states- 
men like  Benton  and  Jackson.  Said  Senator  Scott  of  Indiana 
in  1841:  “I  consider  the  preemption  hiAV  merely  declaratory 
of  the  custom  or  common  law  of  the  settlers.” 

NATIONAL  TENDENCIES  OF  THE  FRONTIER. 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  the  legislation  with  regard  to  land,} 
tariff,  and  internal  improvements — the  American  system  of  theli 
nationalizing  Whig  party — Avas  conditioned  on  frontier  ideas  1^' 
and  needs.  But  it  was  not  merely  in  legislative  action  that 
the  frontier  worked  against  the  sectionalism  of  the  coast. 
The  economic  and  social  characteristics  of  the  frontier  Avorked 
against  sectionalism.  The  men  of  the  frontier  had  closer 
resemblances  to  the  Middle  region  than  to  either  of  the  other 
sections.  Pennsylvania  had  been  the  seed-plot  of  frontier 
emigration,  and,  although  she  passed  on  her  settlers  along  the 


'Adams  Memoirs,  ix,  pp.  247,  248. 


AMERICAN  HISTORICAL  ASSOCIATION. 


2-JO 

Great  Valley  into  tiie  west  of  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas,  yet 
the  industrial  society  of  these  Southern  frontiersmen  was 
always  more  like  that  of  the  IMiddle  region  than  like  that  of 
the  tide- water  portion  of  the  South,  which  later  came  to  si)read 
its  industrial  type  thioughout  the  South. 

The  ^Middle  region,  entered  hy  Vew  York  harbor,  was  an 
o}»en  door  to  all  Eurojie.  The  tide-water  i>art  of  the.  South 
re]>resented  typical  Englishmen,  moditied  by  a warm  climate 
and  servile  labor,  and  living'  in  baronial  fashion  on  great  plan- 
tations; ZSTew  England  stood  for  a special  English  m(»vement — 
Puritanism.  The  Middle  region  was  less  English  than  the 
other  sections.  It  had  a Avide  mixture  of  nationalities,  a varied 
society,  the  mixed  town  and  county  system  of  local  govern- 
ment. a varied  economic  life,  many  religious  sects.  In  short,  it 
was  a region  mediating  between  Xew  England  and  the  South, 
and  the  East  and  the  West.  It  represented  that  composite 
nationality  which  the  contemi)orary  United  States  exhibits, 
that  juxtaposition  of  non-English  groups,  occuitying  a A’alley 
or  a little  settlement,  and  pi-eseuting  redections  of  the  map  of 
Europe  in  their  variety.  It  was  democratic  and  nonsectional, 
if  not  national;  ‘‘easy,  tolerant,  and  contented ;"  rooted  strongly 
in  material,  prospei’ity.  It  was  tyjiical  of  the.  modern  United 
States.  It  Avas  least  sectional,  not  only  because  it  lay  betAveen 
Vorth  and  South,  but  also  because  with  no  barriers  to  shut 
out  its  frontiers  from  its  settled  region,  and  Avith  a system  of 
connecting  waterAvays,  the  Middle  region  mediated  between 
East  and  "West  as  well  as  between  Vorth  and  South.  Thus  it 
became  the  typically  American  region.  Even  the  XeAV  Eng- 
lander, Avho  was  shut  out  from  the  frontier  bj'  the  Middle 
region,  tarrying  in  ZSTew  York  or  Pennsylvania  on  his  Avest- 
ward  march,  lost  the  acutene.ss  of  his  sectionalism  on  the  way.* 

Tlie  spread  of  cotton  culture  into  the  interior  of  the  South 
finally  broke  down  the  contrast  between  the  “tide-water” 
region  and  the  rest  of  the  State,  and  ba.sed  Southern  interests 
on  slaA'ery.  Before  this  process  revealed  its  results  the  west- 
ern portion  of  the  South,  which  Avas  akin  to  Pennsylvania  in 
stock,  society,  and  industry,  showetl  tendencies  to  fall  away 
from  the  faith  of  the  fathers  into  internal  improA^ement  legisla- 
tion and  nationalism.  In  the  Virginia  convention  of  lS29-’30, 
called  to  revdse  the  constitution,  Mr.  Leigh,  of  Chesterfield, 
one  of  the  tide-water  counties,  declared: 


*Autbor's  article  iu  The  Agis  (iladisoii,  AVis.),  November  4, 1892. 


FRONTIER  IN  AMERICAN  HISTORY TURNER. 


221 


One  of  the  main  causes  of  discontent  which  led  to  this  convention,  that 
which  had  the  strongest  intlncuce  in  overcoming  our  veneration  for  the 
work  of  our  fathers,  which  taught  us  to  contemn  the  sentiments  of  Henry 
and  Mason  and  Pendleton,  which  weaned  us  from  our  reverence  for  tlie 
constituted  authorities  of  the  State,  was  an  overweening  passion  for 
internal  improvement.  I say  this  with  perfect  knowledge,  for  it  has  heen 
avowed  to  me  hy  gentlemeu  from  the  West  over  and  over  again.  And  let 
me  tell  the  gentleman  from  Alhemarle  (Mr.  Gordon)  that  it  has  heen 
another  principal  object  of  those  who  set  this  ball  of  revolution  in  motion, 
to  overturn  the  doctrine  of  State  rights,  of  which  Virginia  has  been  the 
very  pillar,  and  to  remove  the  barrier  slie  has  interj)osed  to  the  interfer- 
ence of  the  Federal  Government  in  that  same  work  of  internal  improve- 
ment, by  so  reorganizing  the  legislature  that  Virginia,  too,  may  bo  hitched 
to  the  Federal  car. 

It  was  tliis  iiatioiializilig  tendency  of  the  West  that  trans- 
formed the  democracy  of  Jcfl'erson  into  tlie  natioind  rcpublic- 
auism  of  Monroe  and  the  deinocrticy  of  Andrew  Jackson.  The 
We.st  of  the  war  of  1S12,  the  West  of  Chiy.  and  Benton,  and 
Harrison,  and  Andrew  Jtickson,  shut  off  hy  the  Middle  States 
and  the  mountains  from  the  coast  sections,  had  a solidarity  of 
its  own  with  national  tendencies.*  On  the  tide  of  the  Father 
of  Waters,  Xorth  and  South  met  and  mingled  into  a nation. 
Interstate  migration  went  steadily  on — a process  of  cross-fer- 
tilization of  ideas  and  institutions  The  tierce  struggle  of  the 
sections  over  slavery  on  the  western  frontier  does  not  tliuiin- 
ish  the  truth  of  this  statement ; it  proves  the  truth  of  it.  Slav- 
ery was  a sectional  trait  that  would  not  down,  hut  in  the  West 
it  could  not  remain  sectional.  It  was  the  greatest  of  fron- 
tiersmen who  declared:  "I  believe  this  Government  can  not 
endure  permanently  half  slave  and  half  free.  It  will  become 
all  of  one  thing  or  all  of  the  other.”  Nothing  works  for  nation- 
alism like  intercourse  within  the  nation.  Mobility  of  popula- 
tion is  death  to  localism,  and  the  western  frontier  worked  irre- 
sistibly in  unsettling  population.  The  eflects  reached  back 
from  the  frontier  and' affected  profoundly  the  Atlantic  coast 
and  even  the  Old  World. 

GROWTH  OF  DEMOCRACY. 

But  the  most  imxjortant  effect  of  the  frontier  has  been  in  the 
promotion  of  democracy  here  and  in  Europe.  As  has  been 
ffMdicafed^the  frontier  Is  productive  of  indivrduansiu.r~Com- 
plex  society  is  precipitated  by  the  wilderness  into  a kind  of 

* Compare  Roosevelt,  Thomas  Benton,  ch.  i. 


1 


AMEKICAX  HISTORICAL  ASSOCIATION. 


222 


primitive  orgaiiiziitiuii  based  oii  the  family.  The  tendeuey  is 
anti- social.  It  produces  antipathy  to  control,  and  particularly 
to  any  (brect  coutrol.  The  tax-gatherer  is  vietvedliTa~repre- 
seiitative  of  opjtressiou.  Prof.  Osgood,  in  an  able  article,*  has 
pointed  out  that  the  frontier  conditions  prevalent  in  the  colo- 
nies are  important  factors  in  the  explanation  of  the  American 
Kevolntion,  tvhere  individual  liberty  was  sometimes  confused 
with  absence  of  all  effective  government.  The  same  conditions 
aid  in  explaining  the  diliienlty  of  instituting  a strong  govern- 
I meut  in  the  i)eriod  of  the  confederacy.  The  frontier  individu- 
r alism  has  from  the  beginning  promoted  ilcmocrncy. 

The  frontier  States  that  came  into  t1n‘  TTninn^  the  first  guar- 
ter  of  a century  of  its  existence  came  in  with  democra  tic  suffrage 
provisions,  and  had  reacnve  eli'ects  of  the  highest  importance 
u)>on  the  older  States  whose  peo]des  were  being  attracted  there. 
An  extension  of  the  franchise  became  essential.  It  was  western 


Xew  York  that  forced  an  e.xtension  of  suffrage  in  the  constitu- 
tional convention  of  that  State  in  1821;  and  it  was  western 
Virginia  that  compelled  the  tide-water  region  to  put  a more 
liberal  suffrage  provision  in  the  constitution  framed  in  1830, 
and  to  give  to  the  frontier  region  a more  nearlj^  proiiortionate 
representation  with  the  tide-water  aristocracy.  The  rise  of 
democracy  as  an  effective  force  in  the  nation  came  in  with 
western  preponderance  under  Jackson  and  William  Ilenry 
ilarrison,  and  it  meant  the  triumph  of  the  frontier — with  all 
of  its  good  and  with  all  of  its  evil  elements.!  An  interesting 
illustration  of  the  tone  of  frontier  democracy  in  1830  comes 
from  the  same  debates  in  the  Virginia  convention  already 
referred- toY’  A representative  from  western  Virginia  declared: 


But,  .sir,  it  ia  uot  the  increase  of  i)0{)ulation  iu  the  West  which  this 
gentleman  ought  to  fear.  It  is  the  energy  which  the  mountain  breeze  and 
western  habits  impart  to  those  emigrants.  They  are  regenerated,  politi- 
callj'  I mean,  sir.  They  soon  become  working  politicians;  and  the  difference, 
sir,  between  a talking  and  a ^vorking  politican  is  immense.  The  Old  Do- 
minion has  long  been  celebrated  for  producing  great  orators ; the  ablest 
metaphysicians  in  policy;  men  that  can  split  hairs  iu  all  abstruse  ques- 
tions of  political  economy.  But  at  home,  or  when  they  return  from  Con- 
gress, they  have  negroes  to  fan  them  asleep.  But  a Pennsylvania,  a New 
York,  an  Ohio,  or  a western  lurginia  statesman,  though  far  inferior  in 
logic,  metaphysics,  and  rhetoric  to  an  old  Virginia  statesman,  has  this 
advantage,  that  when  he  returns  home  he  takes  off  his  coat  and  takes  hold 


* Political  Science  Quarterly,  ii,  j{.  457.  Compare  Sumner,  Alexander 
Hamilton,  Chs.  ii-vii.  j 

tCompare  Wilson,  Division  and  Reunion,  pp.  15,  24. 


FRONTIER  IN  AMERICAN  HISTORY — TURNER.  22S 

of  tlie  ])low.  This  gives  him  hone  and  muscle,  sir,  and  preserves  his 
republican  principles  juire  and  uncontaminared. 

So  long-  as  free  laud  exists,  the  opportimity  for  a eompeteuey 
exists,  ami  economic  power  secures  i)olitical  power.  But  the 
democracy  horn  of  free  laud,  stroug-  in  selfishness  and  individu- 
alism, intolerant  of  administrative  experience  and  education, 
and  pressing  individual  liberty  beyond  its  proper  bounds,  has 
its  dangers  as  well  as  it  benetits.  Individualism  in  America 
has  allowed  a laxity  in  regard  to  governmental  affairs  v’hich 
has  rendered  possible  the  spoils  system  and  all  the  manifest 
evils  that  follow  from  the  lack  of  a highly  develo])ed  civic 
spirit.  In  this  connection  may  be  noted  also  the  induence  of 
frontier  conditions  in  permitting  lax  business  honor,  iutiated 
paper  currency  and  wild-cat  banking.  The  colonial  and  rev- 
olutionary frontier  was  the  region  whence  emanated  many  of 
the  wor.st  forms  of  an  evil  currency.*  The  West  in  the  war  of 
1812  repeated  the  phenomenon  on  the  frontier  t)f  that  day,  while 
the  speculation  and  wild-cat  banking  of  the  period  of  the  crisis 
of  1837  occurred  on  the  new  frontier  belt  of  the  next  tier  of 
States.  Thus  each  one  of  the  periods  of  lax  tinancial  integrity 
coincides  with  periods  when  a new  set  of  frontier  communities 
had  arisen,  and  coincides  in  area  with  these  successive  frontiers, 
for  the  most  part.  The  recent  Populist  agitation  is  a case  in 
point.  Many  a State  that  now  declines  any  connection  with 
the  tenets  of  the  Populists,  itself  adhered  to  such  ideas  in  an 
earlier  stage  of  the  development  of  the  State.  A primitive 
society  can  hardly  be  expected  to  show  the  intelligent  apprecia- 
tion of  the  complexity  of  business  interests  in  a developed 
society.  The  continual  recurrence  of  these  areas  of  paper- 
money  agitation  is  another  evidence  that  the  frontier  can  be 
isolated  and  studied  as  a factor  in  American  history  of  the 
highest  importance,  i 

* On  the  relation  of  frontier  conditions  to  Revolutionary  taxation,  see 
Sumner,  Alexander  Hamilton,  Ch.  iii. 

1 1 have  refrained  from  dwelling  on  the  lawless  characteristics  of  the 
frontier,  because  they  are  sufficiently  well  known.  The  gambler  and  des- 
perado, the  regulators  of  the  Carolinas  and  the  vigilantes  of  California, 
are  types  of  that  line  of  scum  that  the  waves  of  advancing  civilization 
bore  before  them,  and  of  the  growth  of  spontaneous  organs  of  authority 
where  legal  authority  was  absent.  Compare  Barrows,  United  States  of 
Yesterday  and  To-morrow;  Shinn,  Mining  Camps;  and  Bancroft,  Popular 
Tribunals.  The  humor,  bravery,  and  rude  strength,  as  well  as  the  vices 
of  the  frontier  in  its  worst  aspect,  have  left  traces  on  American  character, 
language,  and  literature,  not  soon  to  be  effaced. 


224 


AMERICAN  HISTORICAL  ASSOCIATION. 


ATTEMPTS  TO  CHECK  AND  REGULATE  THE  FRONTIER. 

The  East  has  always  feared  the  result  of  an  unregulated 
advance  of  the  frontier,  and  has  tried  to  check  and  guide  it. 
The  English  authorities  would  have  checked  settlement  at 
the  headwaters  of  the  Atlantic  tribntaries  and  allowed  the 
“savages  to  enjoy  their  deserts  in  (|niet  lest  the  peltry  trade 
should  decrease."  This  called  out  Burke’s  splendid  ]>rote.st: 

If  you  stopjied  your  grants,  what  would  be  the  coiisef|uence?  The 
jieople  Would  oecupy  without  grants.  They  have  already  so  occupied  in 
many  places.  You  can  not  station  garrisons  in  every  ]iart  of  these  deserts. 
If  you  drive  tlie  ]>eopie  from  one  place,  tliey  will  carry  on  their  annual 
tillage  and  remove  witli  their  flocks  and  herds  to  another.  IMany  of  the 
peo]dc  in  the  liack  settlements  are  already  little  attached  to  jiarticnlar 
situations.  Already  tliey  have  topped  the  Appalachian  mountains.  From 
thence  they  heliold  before  them  an  immense  plain,  one  vast,  rich,  level 
meadow;  a square  of  live  hundred  miles.  Over  this  they  would  wander 
without  a possibility  of  restraint;  they  would  change  their  manners  with 
their  habits  of  life;  would  soon  forget  a government  by  which  they  were 
disowned;  would  become  hordes  of  English  Tartars ; and,  pouring  down 
njion  your  unfortified  frontiers  a fierce  and  irresistible  cavalry,  become 
masters  of  your  go\  ernors  and  your  counselers,  your  collectors  and  comp- 
trollers, and  of  all  the  slaves  that  adhered  to  them.  iSuch  would,  and  in 
no  long  time  must,  be  the  etfect  of  attempting  to  forbid  as  a crime  and  to 
suppress  as  an  evil  the  comm.iud  and  blessing  of  Providence,  “Increase 
and  multiply.”  Such  would  be  the  happy  result  of  an  endeavor  to  keep 
as  a lair  of  wild  beasts  that  earth  which  God,  by  an  express  ch.arter,  has 
given  to  the  children  of  men. 

But  the  Eiigli.sli  Goveniment  was  uot  alone  in  its  desire  to 
limit  the  advance  of  tlu;  frontier  and  guide  it.s  destinies.  Tide- 
w;iter  A'irgiuia  * and  South  Carolina  f gerrymandered  those 
colonies  to  insure  the  dominance  of  the  coast  in  their  legis- 
latures. AVashiiigton  desired  to  settle  a State  at  a time  in  the 
Xorthwest;  Jefferson  wonld  re.serve  from  settlement  the  terri- 
tory of  his  Louisiana  purchase  north  of  the  thirty-second  ]>ar- 
allel,  in  order  to  ofler  it  to  the  Indians  in  exchange  for  their 
settlements  east  of  the  Mississippi.  “ When  we  s-hall  be  full 
on  this  side,”  he  writes,  “ we  may  laj*  off  a range  of  States  on 
the  w’estern  baidc  from  the  head  to  the  mouth,  and  so  range 
after  range,  advancing  compactly  as  we  multiply.”  Madison 
went  so  far  as  to  argue  to  the  French  minister  that  the  United 
States  had  no  interest  in  seeing  popidation  extend  itself  on 

* Debates  in  the  Constitutioual  Convention,  1829-1830. 

t [McCrady]  Eminent  and  Representative  Men  of  the  Carolinas,  i,  p.43; 
Calhoun’s  tVorks,  i,  pj).  401-406. 


FRONTIER  IN  AMERICAN  HISTORY TURNER.  225 

the  right  bank  of  the  Mississippi,  but  sliould  rather  fear  it. 
When  the  Oregon  question  was  under  debate,  in  1824,  Smyth, 
of  Virginia,  would  draw  an  unchangeable  line  for  the  limits  of 
the  [Jnited  States  at  the  outer  limit  of  two  tiers  of  States 
beyond  the  Mississippi,  complaining  that  the  seaboard  States 
were  being  drained  of  the  flower  of  their  population  by  the 
bringing  of  too  much  land  into  market.  Even  Thomas  Benton, 
the  man  of  widest  views  of  the  destiny  of  the  West,  at  this 
stage  of  his  career  declared  that  along  the  ridge  of  the  Bocky 
mountains  “the  western  limits  of  the  Eeimblic  should  be 
drawn,  and  the  statue  of  the  fabled  god  Terminus  should  be 
raised  upon  its  highest  peak,  never  to  be  thrown  down.”  * 
But  the  attempts  to  limit  the  boundaries,  to  restrict  land  sales 
and  settlement,  and  to  deprive  the  West  of  its  share  of  political 
power  were  all  in  vain.  Steadily  the"  frontier  of  settlement 
advanced  and  carried  with  it  individualism,  democracy,  and 
nationalism,  and  powerfully  aft'ected  the  East  and  the  Old 
World. 

MISSIONARY  ACTIVITY. 

The  most  effective  efforts  of  the  East  to  regulate  the  frontier 
came  through  its  educational  and  religious  activity,  exerted  by 
interstate  migration  and  by  organized  societies.  Speaking  in 
lS3d,  Dr.  Lyman  Beecher  declared:  “It  is  equally  plain  that 
the  religious  and  political  destiny  of  our  nation  is  to  be  decided 
in  the  West,”  and  he  pointed  out  that  the  population  of  the 
West  “is  assembled  from  all  the-  States  of  the  Union  and 
from  all  the  nations  of  Europe,  and  is  rushing  in  like  the  waters 
of  the  flood,  demanding  for  its  moral  preservation  the  imme- 
diate and  universal  action  of  those  institutions  which  disci- 
pline the  mind  and  arm  the  conscience  and  the  heart.  And  so 
various  are  the  opinions  and  habits,  and  so  I'ecent  and  im- 
perfect is  the  acquaintance,  and  so  sparse  are  the  settlements 
of  the  West,  that  no  homogeneous  public  sentiment  can  be 
formed  to  legislate  immediately  into  being  the  requisite  insti- 
tutions. And  yet  they  are  all  needed  immediately  in  their 
utmost  perfection  and  iiower.  A nation  is  being  ‘born  in  a 
day.’  * * ♦ But  what  will  become  of  the  West  if  her  pros- 
perity rushes  up  to  such  a majesty  of  power,  while  those  great 
institutions  linger  which  are  necessary  to  form  the  mind  and 
the  conscience  and  the  heart  of  that  vast  world.  It  must  not 

* Speech  in  the  Senate,  March  1,  1825 ; Register  of  Debates,  i,  721. 

S.  Mis.  104 15 


226 


AMERICAN  HISTORICAL  ASSOCIATION. 


be  permitted.  * * * no  man  at  tire  East  quiet  himself 

and  dream  of  liberty,  a\  liatever  may  become  of  the  West. 

* * * Her  destiny  is  our  destiny.”* 

With  the  appeal  to  the  consci(“nce  of  Xew  England,  he  adds 
a])])eals  to  her  Ibai  s lest  other  religious  sects  anticipate  her 
o\\  n.  Tlie  Xcw  England  preacher  and  .school-teacher  left  their 
mark  on  the  West.  The  dread  of  Western  emancipation  from 
Xeu'Englamrs  political  and  economic  control  Avas  paralled  by 
her  fears  le.st  the  West  cut  loose  from  her  religion.  Com- 
menting in  18.j0  on  repoiTs  that  .settlement  Avas  ra]ddly 
extending  northward  in  Wisconsin,  the  editor  of  the  Home 
Missionary  writes : ‘‘We  scarcely  know  whether  to  rejoice  or 
mourn  over  this  extension  of  our  settlements.  While  we  .sym- 
pathize in  whatever  tends  to  increase  the  physical  resources 
and  ])rospcrity  of  our  country,  we  can  not  forget  that  with  all 
lliese  dispersions  into  remote  and  still  remoter  corners  of  the 
land  the  supply  of  the  means  of  grace  is  becoming  relatively 
less  and  less.”  Acting  in  accordance  with  such  ideas,  home 
missions  were  established  and  Western  colleges  were  erected. 
As  seaboard  cities  like  Philadelphia,  I^ew  York,  and  Baltimore 
strove  for  the  mastery  of  Western  trade,  so  the  various  denomi- 
nations strove  for  the  jiossession  of  the  West.  Thus  an 
intellectiml  stream  from  Xew  England  sources  fertilized  the 
West.  Other  .sections  sent  their  missionaries;  but  the  real 
struggle  was  between  sects.  The  contest  for  power  and  the 
expansive  tendency  furnished  to  the  various  sects  by  the  ex- 
istence of  a moving  frontier  must  have  had  important  results 
on  the  character  of  religious  organization  in  the  United  States. 
The  multiplication  of  rival  churches  in  the  little  frontier 
towns  had  deep  and  lasting  social  effects.  The  religious 
aspects  of  the  frontier  make  a chapter  in  our  history  which 
needs  study. 

INTELLECTUAL  TRAITS. 


From  the  coiiditious  of  frontier  life  came  intellectual  traits^'^ 
of  profound  importance.  The  works  of  travelers  along  each  | 
frontier  from  colonial  clays  onward  describe  certain  common 
traits,  and  these  traits  have,  while  softening  down,  still  per- 
sisted as  survivals  in  the  iilace  of  their  origin,  even  when  a 
higher  social  organization  succeeded.  The  result  is  that  to  the  I 
fronBer^th_e^American  intellect  owes  its  striking  characteristicSj/ 
That  coarseness  and  strength  combined  with  acuteness  and 


Plea  for  the  tVest  (Ciiiciunati,  1835),  pp.  11  ff. 


FRONTIER  IN  AMERICAN  HISTORY — TURNER. 


227 


iuqiiisitiveness;  that  practical,  invpntivp.  turn  of  miud,  quick 
to  flud  expedients ; that  masterful  grasp  of  material  tbings, 
laeking  in  tlie_artistie  but  powerful  to  effect  great  ends;  that 
K^^tle’ss,  nervous  energy;*  that  dominant  individualism,  work- 
ing for  good  and  for  evil,  and  withal  that  buoyancy  and  exuber- 
ance which  comes  with  freedom — these  are  traits  of  the  frontier, 
or  traits.called  out  elsewhere  because  of  the  existence  of  the 
frontier.  Since  the  days  when  the  fleet  of  Ooliind)us  sailed 
into  the  waters  of  the  New  World,  America  has  been  another 
name  for  opportunity,  and  the  people  of  the  United  States 
have  taken  their  tone  from  the  incessant  exi)ansion  which  has 
not  only  been  o])en  but  has  even  been  forced  u|)on  them.  He 
would  be  a rash  jirophet  who  should  assert  that  the  expansive 
character  of  American  life  has  now  entirely  ceased.  Move- 
ment has  been  its  dominant  fact,  and,  uidess  this  training  has 
no  effect  upon  a people,  the  American  energy  will  continually 
demand  a Avider  field  for  its  exercise,  lint  never  again  Avill 
such  gifts  of  free  land  offer  themselves.  For  a moment,  at  the 
frontier,  the  bonds  of  custom  are  broken  and  unrestraint  is 
triumphant!  Tliere  is  not  tahnla  rasa.  The  stubborn  AmgiU 
can  'Environment  is'tliere  AyfOTits  imperiottUsuinmons  to  accept  j 
its  coiTditions;  the  inherited  Avavs  of  doing  thines  are  also  thei'e ; I 
and  yet,  in  spite  of  environment,  and  in  spite  of  custom,  each  | 
frontier  did  indeed  furnish  a new  field  of  opportunity,  a gate  \ 
of  escape  from  the  bondage  of  the  past;  and  fi'eshness,  and  \ 
confidence,  and  scorn  of  older  society,  impatieuceof  itsrestraiuts  ‘ 
and  its  ideas,  and  indifference  to  its  lessons,  haA’e  accompanied 
the  frontier.  What  the  iMediterranean  Sea  was  to  the  Greeks, 
breaking  the  bond  of  custom,  offering  new  exiierieuces,  calling 
out  new  institutions  and  activities,  that,  and  more,  the  ever 
retreating  frontier  has  been  to  the  United  States  directly,  and 
to  the  nations  of  Europe  more  remotely.  j^And  now,  four  cen-  ^ 
turies  from  the  discovery  of  America,  at  the  end  of  a hundred 
years  of  life  under  the  Constitution,  the  frontier  has  gone,  and 
Avith  its  going  has  closed  the  first  period  of  American  history.^ 

* Colonial  travelers  agree  in  remarking  on  the  phlegmatic  character- 
istics of  the  colonists.  It  has  frequently  been  asked  hoAv  such  a people 
could  have  developed  that  strained  nervous  energy  now  characteristic  of 
them.  Compare  Sumner,  Alexander  Hamilton,  p.  98,  and  Adams's  History  ' 
of  the  United  States,  i,  p.  60;  ix,  pp.240,  241.  The  transition  appears  to 
become  marked  at  the  close  of  the  war  of  1812,  a period  when  interest 
centered  upon  the  development  of  the  West,  and  the  AA'est  was  noted  for 
restless  energy.  Grand,  Americans,  ii.,  ch.  i. 


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DUKE  UNIVERSITY 
LIBRARY 


DURHAM,  NORTH  CAROLINA 
27706 


